Category Archives: Ancient And Accepted Scottish Rite

Kitchen Ladder

Typical symbol of the 30th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The rungs on the left are listed with the liberal arts. This image from Charles McClenechan has Hebrew with the rungs on the right. There is an old French “Chevalier Cadocks” ritual (pre 1780) which has a variation of the ladder (just a ladder, not a double one). The Hebrew is here spelled in Latin script. Even though the first two words are the names of two Sephiroth of the Kabbalistic tree, the other words are not.

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Hand with Sword, Hand with Trowel

When Sanabal Hierusalem distrest,
With sharp assaultes, in Nehemias tyme,
To warre, and worke, the Jews them selves addrest
And did repaire theire walls, with stone, and lime:
One hand the swode, against the foe did shake,
The other hand, the trowel, up did take.

The image and text are from Choices of Emblemes (1586) of Geffrey Whitney (1548?-1601?). Belton and Dachez make quite something of this “Sanabal theme”. In his famous oration, Chevalier Ramsay referred to knights who rebuilt King Solomon’s Temple with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. That theme would later appear in early French ‘high degrees’, most notably the “Chevalier d’Orient”, or “Knight of the East” that is still part of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The text also seems to be used in the Royal Arch.

Triangles in Triangle

Tracing board of the 26th degree in a Dutch book about the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The 10 triangles in the middle remind of the Tetraktys. I also have a contemporary French tracing board for the 26th degree of the AASR which is almost identical. The human figure (fourth row, right) is obviously Hermes in that image.

Table

Combination of symbols sometimes as part of the 19th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (Dutch), sometimes of the 21th (1894 Vermont).

Also the 22nd degree of the same Dutch book has this table with geometrical instruments. On a contemporary French 22nd degree tracing board there is just the table as in the image above.

Fighting Sitting

A somewhat odd French 9th degree “tableau” for the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. I suppose we’re looking at nine knights, but are they fighting while sitting on a chair?

Impaled Skull

A sinister image from a French “tableau”. The description refers to two degrees from the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

There is a similar image in Kloss “Second Grade Elû”.